"Doing Indian gaming casinos is like finding your way through a minefield," Richard McLellan, a Lansing lawyer with experience in tribal gaming and Indian affairs, said Tuesday. "There are so many ways to block them."

And even trickier is finding a way to make one happen, and McLellan believes the city of Lansing and the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe have struck gold.

The federal land claims act prescribes exactly how five tribes in the state can use the money they received in a settlement. A provision within that act regarding the Sault Tribe differ from the others, including the Bay Mills tribe, which tried in recent years unsuccessfully to open an off-reservation casino.

"The difference between those two (provisions) is the difference between success and failure," McLellan said."

Michigan State University College of Law Professor Matthew Fletcher, director of indigenous law and policy, said the relevant statute seems to be Section 108, subsection of the Michiagn Indian Land Claims Settlement Act:

(f ) LANDS ACQUIRED USING INTEREST OR OTHER INCOME OFTHE SELF-SUFFICIENCY FUND.—Any lands acquired using amountsfrom interest or other income of the Self-Sufficiency Fund shallbe held in trust by the Secretary for the benefit of the tribe.

The federal settlement money, per the terms of the act, was deposited into the Sault's self-sufficiency fund.

It
appears the city of Lansing and the tribe plan to have the tribe
purchase land from the city using "interest of other income" from the
self-sufficiency fund to purchase the land for the casino.

In doing so, the Secretary of the Interior would have to place the land into trust.

In other words, Fletcher says, "Once they buy the land, the secretary is obligated to take the land into trust."

Getting the land into trust amounts to clearing the biggest hurdle for off-reservation gaming, but it's no guarantee.

"A
lot of tribes have trust land. That doesn't automatically mean its
gaming eligible," he said. The tribe would have to prove it was exerting
governmental authority over the land -- enforcing tribal law on the
parcel.

Fletcher gave the Lansing casino a "decent chance," saying it would likely have to pass a test in the federal courts.

McLellan was even more optimistic.

He said requiring the land to be placed in trust would "sweep away objections that normally would apply," such as requiring the land to be held in trust before a certain time, be within a certain range of the reservation, and other conditions.

Perhaps even more importantly, there is precedent for such an attempt.

"As far as I know, only one tribe did this successfully," Fletcher said: the Wyandott tribe out of Kansas City, Kansas.

That casino was tied up in litigation for ten years, but ultimately, the tribe prevailed.